Image is of Cuba’s National People’s Power Assembly.
The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin’s words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an “asymmetrical” response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).
Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba’s energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US’s influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.
The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Cuba! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I still don’t understand why Cuba chose to host the Russian Navy. Are they trying to upset the US and invite more sanctions against them?
Or were they blackmailed by the Russians: if you don’t let us park our warships at your shores, we will not send you food and oil?
Putin is playing a dangerous game here and I don’t see how this could contribute to de-escalation from a nuclear war.
The US has showed absolutely no signs of lessening the sanctions against Cuba. If anything deepening their relationship with Russia could ease a lot of their economic problems, as Russia has created parallel trade systems that avoid sanctions and the dollar. Russia actually began to cut Cuba off and abandon them before the overthrow of the soviet union, as an attempt at appeasing and winning the approval of the empire. Now that Russia has cast off any illusion of US support or cooperation, building a relationship to Cuba is desirable again. Cuba loses nothing, but stands to gain a lot
I swear to god Gorbachev was such a pathetic little worm. Apparently he once wrote a letter to the US state dept where he asked “what kind of government would like us to have?” And the US just never responded.
Only time I’ll ever give even a little bit of credit to the US government, you shouldn’t respond to such a weakling.
Glad he’s dead
Regionally Cuba and Venezuela are both geographically threatening positions to the US. If I were Russia I’d be very very interested in making relationships with them that surpass the relationships the US has with all the nato countries.
If it were me I’d be considering an anti-american alliance. Like nato was designed specifically to counter the Soviets an alliance specifically to counter the US, put bases all around it. Encircle them like they have done to foreign adversaries for so long.
If this naval expedition stops in Venezuela too then something is up along those lines.
Presidente Sheinbaum, tienes la oportunidad de hacer algo divertido
They greeted them with a 21 gun salute. Seems like a very loud and friendly welcome if you don’t consider them your friends.
Yeah I can see that, I just feel like Cuba always get caught between great power struggles who are recklessly waving their guns around with real potential of sparking a nuclear war.
It’s not that Cuba ‘get’s caught between great power struggles’, they understand that their countries history is one long anti-colonial struggle, and you either figure out how to play ball, or you will soon find yourself as the bases.
This isn’t escalation by Russia it’s tit for tat because Ukraine has destroyed some nuclear detection radars in Russia and America has given Ukraine permission to attack Russia with American f16s which Russia has said they consider nuclear capable. Destroying the radar is exactly what you would do before committing to a nuclear attack.
The US has its nukes on everyone’s borders, floats its ships through their waters, flies through their airspace. This is not an escalation. Allied nations send vessels through one another’s ports all the time. Russia does this regularly. This moment is intense so it is getting attention and there is a case for not doing it, but it is not escalation. Keep in mind the DPRK has had submarines go to Cuba in the past 20 years.